


speaking a dead language

by chrysa (Kyuu)



Category: Pokemon
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Homophobia, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, Supernatural Elements, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-29
Updated: 2011-12-29
Packaged: 2017-10-28 10:11:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyuu/pseuds/chrysa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, there are people you just can’t live without. For Green, Red is that person.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Rykea and Skylark for helping me look over it!

_you don't sound like yourself  
i hope it's just lost in translation _  
\- "[speaking a dead language](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8rQPF-qESU)"

 

(11)

While Green likes to think of himself as a nice person, he's also the vindictive type and isn't particularly inclined to be nice towards any trainers who've beaten him. So when Ethan - that brat who claimed an Earth badge last week - shows up at his gym half-conscious and looking ready to collapse at any moment, Green still nearly turns him away at the door.

That is, until Ethan mumbles something about Mt. Silver and a trainer that's impossible to beat before proceeding to pass out in Green's arms.

Normally, Green would just dump trainers like him at the city Pokémon Center, but this time, he lets his curiosity gets the better of him.

He drags Ethan inside.

 

It takes a four hour nap, two cups of coffee, and a reheated dinner before Ethan gives up any sort of information at all. Green's not convinced it was worth the effort either.

"Your grandfather," Ethan says in between stuffing a dinner roll into his mouth, "- Professor Oak, told me about Mt. Silver and how there were lots of really powerful Pokémon there. So I wanted to check it out for myself. That's all."

Ethan's not a very good liar. Green stares at him disbelievingly.

There's a long, awkward silence as Ethan licks his lips and fidgets, avoiding Green's eyes. Green quirks an eyebrow, but waits for him to continue.

"I'm not really supposed to tell you this," Ethan says to him eventually, his voice soft and low. "He told me to keep quiet about it. But I found out from him and some other people - well, mostly from him first and then I asked around after that - but there's a rumor of an unbeatable trainer up there."

Green's eyes narrow into a glare.

"S-sorry," Ethan stutters.

"It's not your fault," Green says, and it's the truth.

But the taste of bitterness still lingers in his mouth afterwards. Of course he wouldn't want Green finding out about it. After all, his grandfather had always disapproved.

 

*

 

(2)

People stared. People pointed and whispered in hushed tones, then pretended to look away when his eyes glanced past them.

It only made Green grip Red's hand harder.

"Green, Green," Red would mumble quietly into his shoulder, but wouldn't let go, wouldn't pull his hand away and instead squeezed back just as tightly.

"It'll be okay," Green would whisper back to him, again and again, shielding him from the prying, judgmental eyes.

If he says it enough times, it might become the truth.

 

Pictures. Less than a handful of them, but more than enough to be incriminating. Green and Red eating together at a restaurant, happy and content; Green holding Red's hand as they walked down the street together; Green kissing Red - on the cheek - simple and innocent, nothing passionate or scandalous in any way.

But scandalous enough to warrant no less than twenty reporters beating down their apartment door the next day.

"Red! Red! Green!" they scream through the door, their pounding arrhythmic and relentless. "Do you have any comments on the pictures? How long have you two been dating?"

Inside, Eevee and Pikachu huddle in a corner, and Green drapes an arm across Red's waist, pulling him close on their narrow bed. He whispers soothingly into Red's ear, "It'll be okay. It'll be okay," over and over again.

He's said it one thousand, eight hundred and twenty-seven times before he begins to believe it himself.

 

That night, they get a phone call from Red's mother.

At first there's only screaming, shrieks and accusations tinged with grief. Eventually, it dissolves into choked sobs and muffled pleas to stop, to go back to the way it was before, to just let her have her baby back.

Green watches worriedly from the side as Red listens to all of this with a numbed expression, his eyes glazing over. Red doesn't say anything. But he also doesn't hang up.

After the sobs die down into a prolonged period of silence, Red hands him the phone. Green looks at it warily but picks it up anyway.

"Green," his grandfather says over the phone, voice full of suppressed rage and disappointment. There is no trace of the gentle and kind veneer he puts on for everyone but Green, or even the distant coldness that Green is used to. Instead he uses the tone that he saves for when he is truly angry. Green swallows loudly.

"Green," his grandfather says again when Green doesn't reply. "Why are you doing this?"

"I love him," Green says as evenly as he can. His grandfather isn't the person that he should be telling this to, especially since he's never admitted this before, not even to himself. Red shifts on the bed behind him, and Green feels Red's eyes burning a hole into the back of his head.

"I raised you to be a better man than this." A surge of anger rushes through him, and Green has to bite back the _you barely raised me at all._

"I love Red," he says, more firmly this time because he doesn't have to explain himself to anyone. He's not going to back down. What's between him and Red is between them and no one else.

"Don't come back until you've changed."

Green can't tell who hangs up first: him or his grandfather.

 

*

 

(12)

Right as he's falling asleep that night, the temperature in his apartment suddenly drops a few degrees.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the silhouette of a white figure in front of his window. The curtains are fluttering slightly behind it, as if there were a breeze in the room, and a pair of red eyes glowing in the dark gazes in his direction.

Green jolts up from his bed. His curtains are still. The room temperature is normal. There's no one standing by his window.

He bites his lip. Green doesn't feel tired anymore, and he can't seem to fall asleep again for the rest of the night. The single event replays in his mind, over and over again.

Green thinks his imagination has been getting too good lately.

 

*

 

(4)

Green can remember the day Red leaves almost as clearly as if it were yesterday.

If he's not careful, sometimes he deludes himself into thinking that it was.

There isn't anything particularly special about this day in Green's mind, nothing different or especially out of the ordinary about it.

Red drags him out of bed in the morning, fighting him tooth and nail because Green's not much of a morning person. But Green needs to get to work, protesters be damned, and he could always count on Red to make sure he'd get there on time.

Breakfast is its usual sorry affair, some burnt toast and soggy cereal that could only be caused by distracting kisses and inappropriately wandering hands.

"Don't forget to pick up milk," Red reminds him on his way out, since they're running low. He fixes Green's jacket and looks him straight in the eye.

"I know, I know," Green says and leans down for a kiss.

If the kiss lingers a bit longer than it really should, it's because it was full of promises of better things to come.

 

The first sign that Green should've known something was out of the ordinary is when he walks through the front door with an arm full of groceries and Red's not there.

Green used to be Champion too; he knows all about their schedules, how much harder and easier it as at the same time. The late-nights are few and far between compared to those of a gym leader, but he's had them. It's probably just one of those nights, he thinks.

He goes about making dinner, and Eevee distractingly twists around his feet, paws padding gently on the linoleum kitchen floor. Red still hasn't returned by the time he finishes, and he sets them the dishes on the dining table and watches them cool.

By nine o'clock, Eevee's hungry and pawing at his leg, and Green thinks that if he waits any longer to feed it, he'll probably be accused of abuse by the Pokémon Humane Society.

Green wanders around the apartment for half an hour looking for the Pokémon Chow. Then he realizes that it's Red who usually feeds Eevee and Pikachu.

 

At exactly 11:38pm, Green gets a call from Leaf. Her voice is frantic and hysterical, and he can barely understand her between her stuttering and sobs.

 _It must be important_ , he thinks when he finally gets off the phone with her. Too bad he couldn't hear a word she'd said over the noise in his own head of his worry for Red.

 

*

 

(13)

The next time Ethan shows up at his gym, a red-haired boy and a brown-haired girl with pigtails are tagging along behind him, and Green assumes they're his friends. Putting up with one brat was enough, but now he has three? Green rolls his eyes.

"Help me train," Ethan says - he doesn't ask or request, but flat-out demands.

"Who the fuck do you think I am?" Green snaps. "Go hire a personal trainer. I'm busy."

"But you're the _best_ ," Ethan says. "How can I defeat that trainer on Mt. Silver if I don't train with the best?"

"No."

Ethan frowns when he realizes that it's not as easy as he thinks it is to get on Green's good side by stroking his ego, so he resorts to whining.

"You take other trainers in your gym though! Please please please. Please please please please _please_."

Green eventually gives in, if only to make Ethan shut up.

 

They're not as annoying as Green thought they'd be - certainly not as annoying as Ethan, and they mostly just keep to themselves. They sit in the corner of his gym and watch Ethan train, and, every once in a while, the girl will turn to the redhead, point in Ethan's direction before poking him in the cheek, and the boy will turn an interesting shade of red that clashes with his hair.

Green watches all of this with mild amusement and fascination.

Once, he catches Ethan staring in their direction as the boy tries to pry himself out of the girl's hug.

"Why aren't you doing the exercises?"

Ethan ignores his question. "What do you do... when girls confess to you? How do you turn them down?"

Green pauses and wonders what this has to do with anything, failing to see the connection. Did Ethan really not know anything about him? "I think you're asking the wrong person." It's not completely untrue; most girls had just stopped trying after that incident, though he still turned one or two away every few months.

Still, he answers Ethan anyway. "Well, before ... _that_ happened, I'd politely tell them I was already seeing someone. These days?" He laughs, but it comes out sounding more like a bark. "I just tell them I don't swing that way. It usually gets the point across."

Ethan nods like Green's actually helpful, and Green just rolls his eyes.

 

Later, when Ethan's friends have left to grab some dinner, Ethan approaches him, looking hesitant and unsure.

"I love Lyra, just not in that way," he tells Green. "But I don't want to hurt her."

Green nods for him to continue.

"How did - how did you tell him?" Ethan asks, and it takes a moment for Green to realize what he's talking about.

"I didn't," Green admits, suddenly feeling very small. "He pulled me down, then he kissed me."

Ethan's eyes widen a fraction of an inch. "Oh," he breathes. "Thank you for telling me." When he looks to the side, Green can almost see him thinking, forming a plan of attack, with a strangely familiar look of determination burning in his eyes.

In all his years of running the gym, Green has never met anyone like Red. Of course, Red would always be _Red_ to him and therefore irreplaceable, but he's never met anyone with the same kind of spirit.

Ethan might have the farthest personality possible from Red - loud, outspoken, and bright while Red is quiet, soft spoken, and reserved - but seeing that unwavering conviction in Ethan's eyes has opened up a wound in Green's heart that he hadn't known had even healed.

"No problem," Green says, voice tight in his throat. "Just... don't forget the people you leave behind."

 

*

 

(5)

A few days after that phone call, Leaf comes bursting into his apartment looking nothing short of murderous. Her hair is pulled back cleanly into a bun, and she's dressed from head to toe in black instead of her usual cheerful colors. Green glances up, unfocused, and it takes a moment for him to register the dangerous glint in her eye.

"Where have you been, you - oh my god, what _happened_!?" she yells, her anger almost immediately dissipating into horror and concern.

Green looks around his apartment, and actually registers the chaos for the first time - papers and journal articles scattered everywhere, his clothes piling up in various corners of the room. He'd probably let it get out of hand while he wasn't paying attention. Cleaning had always been Red's job, and cooking Green's - it was an arrangement that worked well for them. He notes with dull amusement over the buzzing in his head that Red will probably be really angry when he comes back.

"I just brought some paperwork from the gym to do while I wait," he says. "Um, I'll clean it up -"

"I don't care about your apartment! What happened to _you_?" Leaf looks at him with worried blue eyes.

Green squints down at his shirt. He knows he's changed his clothes and doesn't think they're wrinkled. He's pretty sure he looks at least passable. And he remembers eating something less than six hours ago.

"I'm fine," he says.

"When was the last time you slept?"

Green has to pause and count backwards. "I passed out sometime two days ago," he admits.

Leaf shoves him back onto his bed with some force. "Sleep," she commands.

"But -" Who would keep watch in case Red returned?

"No but's. Sleep. Now."

If there's one thing Green remembers about being friends with Leaf in his childhood, it's that she's quite scary when she wants to be. Green isn't tired at all, but he closes his eyes just to humor her. Strangely, he finds that sleep follows easily afterwards.

 

When he wakes up, Leaf is cooking in his kitchen. His paperwork and journal magazines are organized in neat piles on his dining room table, laundry folded and shoved back into his closet, and his apartment looks rearranged and normal. Like Red had never left.

Green sits up to look around, his world still slightly fuzzy from sleep but more coherent than before. Leaf notices, comes over, and shoves a bowl of what likes oatmeal in his hands. She plops down in a chair next to his bed.

Green eats his oatmeal in uncomfortable silence for some minutes before Leaf decides to break the tension.

"Why weren't you there?" she says, and Green can hear the slight waver in her voice.

"Where?" he asks. And then, just in case, "Did Red come back while I was asleep?"

Leaf blinks once, and then sadness fills her eyes. "Oh, Green." She looks on the verge of tears, and Green can't seem to remember if he's ever seen Leaf cry. "Weren't you listening? I - I told you."

Panic floods into Green. "Where's Red?"

Leaf looks away.


	2. Chapter 2

_and somewhere in all the talking  
the meaning faded out _  
\- "[speaking a dead language](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8rQPF-qESU)"

 

(14)

Between Ethan's training sessions, Green still has a gym to run and challengers to fight, so it's no surprise that he's been passing out almost immediately when he hits his bed.

A week into Ethan's training, Green stumbles home sometime after 3 AM, irritated because this has been happening for the last seven days and he still has unfinished paperwork that was supposed to have been done by yesterday and needs to be up in less than four hours.

It's after he collapses on his bed, not even bothering to pull the covers over himself, that he see Red poke his head in through his window.

 _Red,_ he thinks. He's happy for all of five seconds before his brain supplies, _Of course that bastard would show up now of all times, for the first time in years._ Still, even though he's a little annoyed, Green _has_ missed his boyfriend. He's too tired to move though, and can barely even make vague motions with his arm for Red to come closer.

"Red," he manages to moan.

Red steps into their apartment with grace and glides over the floor towards his bed. (Their bed, Green reminds himself, even though Red hasn't slept on it for years.)

"Red," Green says. He attempts to grab onto Red's jacket when he's within arm's reach, but it slips right through Green's grasp.

Red fumbles with the covers and manages to tug them out from beneath Green and pull them over him.

"Red," Green tries again, even though he's already half asleep, because Red's here - _here_ again, finally - and there are so many things that need to be said.

Red puts his index finger over Green's mouth to hush him, and slides under the cover onto Green's ( _their_ ) bed. Green manages to turn slightly so he can face Red, but Red covers Green's eyes with his hand, his touch cool and airy but achingly familiar.

This too, Green thinks, is okay for now.

 

Except Red isn't there when he wakes up in the morning, two and a half hours after his alarm _should_ have gone off. He mumbles a string of curses under his breath as he scrambles through the apartment, pulling on his pants and shoving a slice of toast in his mouth in his hurry to get ready.

It's unfair, he thinks, that Red would be the one who'd make him late when it always used to be Red's job to make sure he got to work on time. More than that, he's annoyed that Red would just _leave_ after bothering to show up for the first time in so long, and plans a series of snappy insults for when (if) Red comes back.

Still, despite all this, Green can't help but be a little happy because - _Red_. Green has no proof other than his waking under the covers instead of on top of them and a faint smell of cinnamon on his pillow that hasn't been there in years, but that's all he needs. For now.

It isn't until noon that Green realizes he lives on the third floor.

 

*

(3)

Mt. Silver, Green remembers, was always Red's idea.

"Hey," Red says, clearing his throat for good measure when Green doesn't turn his way after a few seconds.

"What? Sorry." Green looks up sheepishly from his paperwork.

"It's been a year," Red says.

Green has to pause to consider what he's talking about. Their one-year anniversary had been a few months ago (which Red almost forgot), and he couldn't remember any other dates either of them would deem as important.

"One year since what?"

"Since that."

Oh. _That._ The event that would not be named.

Before Green can ask why Red is bringing it up, Red says, "We should - go somewhere. Celebrate."

Green stares at him.

Red blinks. "What?"

"You barely even remember our anniversary, and yet you can remember the date for _that_? And you want to _celebrate_ it?" Green asks.

Red walks over to his chair and drapes himself over Green, tugging the paper out of his hand. "We've survived the worst, right? That deserves some sort of celebration."

 _Survived the worst._ Green hopes there's some truth to that.

 

It's a bit of an unusual choice of a destination, but since it's _Red_ , perhaps that was a given.

"It'll be fun," Red says even though Green's idea of fun did not involve hiking up mountains that were perpetually caught in snow storms and continuously fighting off wild Pokemon while doing so.

"It's secluded," Red tells him, and that's reason enough. No prying eyes, no scathing glares that they have to deal with every day. "There's a bed and breakfast. We can watch the sunrise from the top." He shoves a handful of brochures about Mt. Silver in Green's face that detailed the scenic routes (what scenic routes? Green's pretty sure they all look the same through the snow), the wild Pokemon (seen those, caught that), and the tourism industry (there was a tourism industry? Who'd want to vacation there? Besides Red).

Still, Red's said more about Mt. Silver to Green than he has said at all in the last week, so for some reason Green can't understand, he must _really_ want to go. Green has a soft spot for Red, and maybe in some small, tiny way, he might be convinced that this, them, the persecution, is his fault, and even though it doesn't sound like his idea of fun, he agrees.

Something like a ghost of a smile flitters across Red's face when he finally gives in, and before it even really registers in Green's mind, Red's tugged him out of his chair for a kiss and is pulling him towards their bed.

 _Oh._ Green thinks between kisses. _Mt. Silver really is great._

 

"I had a few Rocket grunts show up at the gym today," he says to Red over dinner. "Tried to get into the gym." Green sighs. "I thought you took care of them, and they were gone?"

Red hums and runs his fingers over Green's knuckles. "Vacation will be good for you."

Green wants to roll his eyes because it's _Mt. Silver_ , and he's not sure how freezing his ass off would be good for him. Still, when he sees Red's smile, he thinks that it might all be worth it.

 

But then, Red disappears.

 

No one wants to tell him anything. They were supposed to leave for Mt. Silver in a week, but now Red's gone, and no one wants to talk to Green at all. They'd made plans and packed their bags and arrange vacation dates, and Green had wondered if he was crazy for going through this much trouble for _Mt. Silver_.

But now Green has an armful of vacation brochures for a place he doesn't want to see, a suitcase of clothes with nowhere to go, and a week of vacation with nothing to do.

Afterwards, long after unpacking his clothes - their clothes - and putting them back into the closet and sitting around his apartment for a week doing nothing but paperwork, he forgets about Mt. Silver. Still, sometimes he finds the brochures lying around to remind him of the terrible vacation that never was.

Green never throws them away.

 

*

(15)

It's raining the next time Ethan shows up at his gym. Green has never been a big fan of cliché, but even he feels a bit sorry for Ethan when Green sees tears running down his face with the rain. He waits for Ethan to say something, but the boy is unusually silent and just stands in front of his gym door. After a moment, Green sighs and pulls Ethan in, muttering something about the gym not being a Pokemon Center or a charity.

He's toweling Ethan's hair dry when Ethan finally cracks.

"He said no," Ethan says. Green stops, feeling a surge of numbness rush through his arms, and puts the towel down. "He said - he said he felt the same, but." Ethan takes a shaky breath and wipes the tears off with his arm. "But he's afraid. For me. Because of his father. He doesn't think I could protect myself."

When Ethan's downcast eyes turn up to look at him, the determination in his eyes is burning so brightly that, for a moment, Green almost thinks they're tainted red.

"Help me," Ethan pleads. "I want to be strong. Not just for me or him or us. For Lyra. For anyone who needs me to be. I need you to teach me."

Green looks away, answer choked in his throat. He couldn't because it wasn't him, hadn't ever been him. That had always been Red's job.

"I don't know how."

 

*

(9)

They're not supposed to be here. Green's not really supposed to be here right now either though Lance has taken pity on him and let him tag along which is why he is, but _they're_ definitely not supposed to be here.

"Stay with me and don't do anything stupid," Lance had warned him when he agreed to let Green come.

But now, seeing those Rocket grunts walking around... when _Red_ was -

A flash of hot red and white runs across his vision and Green jolts towards them. "What do think you're doing?" he hisses, and can feel Lance trying to grab at his arm to pull him back, _Green, don't -_ at his lips.

But even Lance can't stop Eevee - who's already at Green's feet, her dark eyes staring down her opponents with nothing but uncontained rage. Maybe it's not _their_ fault, but Green's never been angrier in his life, not even at his grandfather.

And _someone_ needs to pay for this.

 

When he finally beats the last grunt, Green makes sure to kick him while he's still down. Hard. Multiple times, for good measure.

"Green - _Green._ " Lance grabs his arm and tries to pull him back. "That's enough. You don't have jurisdiction here. The Elite Four - the police, we'll take over from here."

"What the fuck do you mean I don't have jurisdiction?" Green hisses through his teeth. "Fuck you. In case you forgot, I used to be the champion too." He leaves _I could still beat you now_ hanging in the air between them. Green knows all too well the power of words, but he doesn't feel even a bit sorry when he sees Lance flinch. "This is _my_ gym. And Red was _my_ -"

 _Green can't bring himself to finish his sentence._

 _Lance's expression deflates, and Green turns to avoid looking him in the eye so he doesn't have to see the _pity_ he knows is there. To Lance's credit though, he doesn't let go of Green's arm. Green lets out a huff._

"Yeah, whatever, I get it," Green mutters, and pulls his arm out of Lance's grasp. Lance looks worried, but Green just waves him off. "Don't worry about me, I'm a big boy," he says and walks off in the direction of Viridian Forest.

He feels much better later when he's finally calmed down. But then, Green realizes that he can't even remember why he was so angry in the first place.

 

*

(17)

Green lets Ethan stay in his gym for the night and even offers to stay with him because he honestly doesn't have anything more to offer.

"I'm sorry," Ethan says, even though it's probably Green who should be apologizing. "I've been a burden. How can I expect other people to rely on me if I can't even rely on myself?"

Green shrugs. "No man is an island."

Ethan smiles at him weakly. "Thanks. But this is the last time I'll bother you. You can go home - you don't have to stay with me. Sorry. I've kept you here long enough."

Green _is_ tired and wants to leave, but he doesn't know how to explain that his apartment hasn't felt like (or been) home in years.

 _It's still raining when Green leaves the gym. He doesn't bother to go back inside to grab an umbrella because it's late enough already, and somehow, he can't really find it in himself to care._

 _His shoes squeak against the stairs as he walks up the three flights to his apartment. The dim light in the hallway flickers as Green fumbles with his keys, the cool metal tingling and icy in his hands after having been drenched in the rain. He doesn't bother turning on the light when he gets inside, toeing off his shoes and quietly navigating through the maze of his apartment in the dark towards his bed. Green casts a glance towards his windows just as he's about to collapse into bed, wet clothes and all, but what he sees makes him stop dead in his tracks._

 _A pair of haunting red eyes is staring back in his direction, directly at him._

 _"Red," Green whispers, and it almost sounds loud against the silence of the room._

 _Red pushes off the window frame he'd been leaning against and takes one step, two, three towards Green, gliding across the span of the room._

 _Green desperately tries to remember any of the snappy remarks he'd planned for this, or, failing at that, he would even settle for anger or annoyance - anything - at Red, for having been gone so long._

 _Instead, his heart is racing at a million miles per hour, tight and constricted and at the hollow of his throat._

 _"Red, I -" _I missed you.__

Red doesn't say anything, looks up at him once before tugging at Green's jacket, pants, shirt, clothes, and Green's helping him do the same. Red isn't wet, but he's cold, even colder than Green, who _had_ been in the rain, and the sensation of his cool fingers especially burn against Green's warming skin.

Soon, they're tumbling back into the bed, one after another, choked breaths and moans, and all Green can see through the night are dark hair, red eyes, and ecstasy.

 

*

(16)

Bravado and arrogance aside, Green doesn't think of his own story as particularly special. Sure, not everyone was related to a world-famous Pokemon professor, nor, perhaps, were they dumped on that professor after an untimely accident.

But then again, broken homes are nothing new or uncommon. Maybe it was unfair that Green wasn't doted on like the sister who looked like his mother and was rather scorned like the bastard father who took her away - all because of his eyes, but whoever said life was fair?

Still, even though Green doesn't _like_ his grandfather, doesn't owe him a damn thing, he's at least grateful to have been raised instead of shunted out the door. And Eevee, the light of his life, who his grandfather had hesitantly given up if only because it got Green to leave - even Green has to thank him for that.

Then there was Red, the only thing Green had ever wanted - the only thing he'd ever had and lost, and well, even that wasn't so rare. After all, love is a suffering everyone goes through. At first, Green is stupid and young and completely in love like that would change the world or mean something.

But then Red is gone, and no one wants to let him know _why_ Red is gone and avoids his eyes when he asks. Still, Green thinks it's better than to have never had Red in the first place. After all, Green is _still_ stupid and young and in love, and he doesn't know how not to be.

Green may be stupid and young, but he's not naive so he doesn't martyr himself over it.

Those things, after all, are only common tragedies.

 

*

(18)

"You look like hell," Leaf comments when she arrives four days after Green's seen Red. Green shrugs noncommittally. Leaf pauses. "You _seem_ really happy, though."

"Really?" Green hums, hands going for the dark circles he knows are under his eyes but almost smiling despite himself.

"Something good happen?" Leaf asks tentatively. "I haven't seen you this happy since..." She leaves the words hanging in the air, but Green has trouble following what she means.

"Since what?"

Leaf avoids looking at him. "Anyway, I'm glad you're in a good mood for once, but you still need to take care of yourself. I think I got a call from every single trainer at your gym in the last three days. You're freaking all of them out."

Green shrugs and stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"So what's been keeping you up? Somebody you should be telling me about? I hear there's a new boy hanging around the gym..."

Green scoffs and rolls his eyes. "First of all, he's a dumbass kid who wanted me to train him. Second, he already has someone he likes. Who isn't me. Third, even if I _did_ , I wouldn't be telling you." He smirks and pokes her in the shoulder. Leaf is one of the few people Green can trust, who'd supported them from the beginning, but he doesn't want to tell her just yet. He wants Red to remain his secret just a little longer.

Leaf pouts and punches him playfully before dragging him to the diner they always go to when she's in town, and tells him all about _her_ new beau.

After they finally settle in their seats and the waitress takes their orders, Leaf becomes unusually quiet and serious, and that's when Green knows he should start to worry.

"Your grandfather," Leaf starts slowly and cautiously, "is worried about you. You should call him sometime."

"Yeah?" Green rearranges his silverware and begins picking at his napkin. "Who'd have thought?"

Leaf sighs. "He's already apologized."

"About Red. He has other things he should be sorry for."

"Green, you can't keep pushing people away. I was joking earlier about the new boyfriend thing, but you have to move on. You can't be hung up over this forever. You should move out, get a new apartment, and then... Even you need som-"

"I have you."

Leaf flinches back at his words, almost guiltily, as if she blamed herself for not being around.

"Leaf, don't - I mean, I'm fine. I don't expect you to take care of me. And I know you're there if I need you. _I'm fine._ "

They sit in uncomfortable silence until the waitress brings their orders.

"Sorry," Leaf says and looks longingly at Green's fries, as if he would keep them from her. Green sighs and pushes the plate to her side of the table.

"Seriously, why haven't you been sleeping? I'm surprised you're not toppling over. Do you have bad nightmares or something?"

"I don't dream," Green mumbles, and Leaf is quiet.

"You're too young not to have any dreams," Leaf finally says, and it takes a moment for Green to register what she means.

"Leaf," he says pointedly, and Leaf bites her lip, knowing that she's treading on thin ice.

Green sighs. "Look, I'm sorry. But -" He can't help the smile that flits across his face. Sure, he feels like hell because he'd stayed up every night waiting, just in case Red came around. Even if Red had disappeared again that morning, it's okay now because Green _knows_ Red is back.

"Green?"

Green can tell her because she was the first person they'd told, was one of the only people they'd _told_ , and he can trust her with this as well.

"I - Red is back, Leaf!" he says, astonished by the truth in his own words. "Red came back."

He waits a moment for her shock to fade. What replaces it, though, isn't joy or excitement, but sorrow pooling in the bottom of Leaf's eyes.

"Green," Leaf whispers after a long moment, "Red is dead."


	3. Chapter 3

_and brick by brick we started crumbling  
will i find you when it falls?_  
\- "[speaking a dead language](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8rQPF-qESU)"

 

(6)

 _"Red died, Green."_

 _It had taken Leaf a while to figure out what to do. At first, she dances around the topic, and it takes her a suggestion to move to the kitchen and the shredding of an entire napkin before she finally spits it out. Green blinks at her, muted into shock. Then, he turns away and refuses to say anything, refuses to do anything at all. The kitchen clock ticks loudly in the background._

 _"Green," she cries. "I_ told _you. Weren't you listening?"_

 _When Green still doesn't respond, Leaf almost dissolves into hysterics._

 _"He died, Green. Red_ died _. How could you not have known - everyone knew, it was all over the news, didn't it_ mean _anything -"_

 _Abruptly, Green stands up, his chair's legs loudly scraping against the linoleum floor, and Leaf jerks back in surprise, immediately quiet. Green is still as Leaf watches him for a moment._

 _"Green?" Leaf whispers._

 _"I - I know," Green says. He knows Leaf wouldn't lie to him. "I believe you. I just... need to think." He hesitates. "And I'm sorry."_

 _Green walks out the door._

 

*

(18)

Green stares numbly at the ceiling in his office. He's never really noticed it before, he realizes, though probably with good reason. It's dull and grey and not particularly interesting, and he should be doing the paperwork he still hasn't caught up on, but he's not in the mood. So Green stares at his ceiling instead.

"Green?" There's a knock on his door.

Green sighs and sits up. "Come in."

One of his trainers - a girl he recognizes as Ida - pushes open his door with a box of badges in hand. "New shipment." She smiles. "Just came in."

Green nods. "Put them over there," Green says and gestures to a corner in his office. Ida walks over and puts the box down.

Just as she's about to exit the room, Green asks monotonously, "When did Red die?"

Ida stops in her tracks and turns. "Green?" Her voice trembles slightly. When Green doesn't respond, vacant eyes looking vaguely in her direction, she cautiously starts, "About three ye-"

"I don't mean that," Green snaps, and Ida jumps, shocked. Green sighs. "Sorry, I meant - a date."

There's a long pause as Ida thinks. "It was in March. Almost a month after I started."

"Thanks," Green breathes, and grabs for his coat. "Tell everyone they can have the rest of the day off. I'll close the gym."

Ida nods and scurries out quickly, just in case he changes his mind.

 

Green comes back from the library a few hours later with all the newspapers from February to June of that year. He scans through the articles about him or Red, careful to avoid the ones written with malice, until he comes across the story he's looking for.

Red. Team Rocket. The accident.

Green reads the ones after that too, and notices the change in tone. _Red was a hero,_ they all read. _Red was a brilliant trainer and a good person, someone who loved Pokemon._ Like those were the only things people thought about him when he was still alive.

They were the things that really mattered, of course, but no one cared when he was still alive. Or maybe people were too cowardly to speak ill of the dead.

Green reads the articles about him, too, about how Team Rocket tried to take over his gym, how he single-handedly beat them all off, and chuckles at the memory. He remembers all of that, how angry he was, how he couldn't remember why he was so angry afterwards.

He digs through for the ones about the funeral next, but none of them mention him - how Red's death affected him, how he wasn't there, how he wasn't _invited_.

He doesn't stop reading until dawn.

 

Green wakes up the next morning to pounding against his office door and worried voices from the other side.

 _"Green? Green! Are you okay?"_

Green grunts and pushes himself off his desk.

"I'm fine," he yells back. "I'll be out in a minute." He ruffles the flattened side of his hair with one hand and puts the pages back together with the other, folds up the newspapers, pushes the pile to the corner of his desk. He has work to do.

It isn't until past lunchtime that Green has a chance to return to his office. He looks at the giant stack of newspapers on his desk and squints. He'd been looking for something, and he's pretty sure that he doesn't want to remember why.

 

*

(8)

It was just supposed to be a routine mission, he's later told. Red was just supposed to check up on some Rockets, take care of them if necessary, but wasn't supposed to be dangerous or go so wrong.

This is what happens, the part he always forgets: after Green leaves for work that day, Red gets a call to investigate suspicious activity past Cerulean City, by the Power Plant.

Team Rocket had been trying to manipulate electric signals to weaken the wild Pokemon in the area, but didn't have the proper technology to control the pulse. Their signals would've caused all the Tentacool and Tentacruel in the nearby river poison the waterways and contaminate the drinking water. Or worse, the signal could have reached as far as Cerulean Cave and create enough havoc that the Pokemon there would escape and attack the city.

If Team Rocket even gotten that far - the signals they managed to create couldn't be sustained and would have devastated the entire area.

But Red had deactivated enough switches by the time the generator exploded that it was contained to just the power plant.

Red was a hero, they all tell him, like it would make a difference. He had saved thousands of lives.

Green wants to argue back: you'd hated him, had _wanted_ him to fall apart. He doesn't and is instead just grateful that people even cared that much about Red at all.

 

"There are reports of Rockets attempting to break into your gym," Lance informs him.

"No shit," Green says. "Who are you getting your intelligence from? _I_ could've told you that."

"We have reason to believe that a device which can control their desired electric impulse signal is located somewhere in the Viridian Gym, and that they are after it. Since this is an official Elite Four investigation, we would like your full cooperation, Gym Leader Green."

"Official investigation?" Green hisses. "Are you investigating why Red is _dead_? How well you take care of your own? Or _why I wasn't invited to his funeral?_ "

Lance flinches back. "Green..." he tries.

"Shut up. _Shut up._ This is my gym, and I can fucking take care of it myself."

"Green," Lance says sternly. "This doesn't have to be a request."

"Yeah? So?"

Lance considers his words carefully before speaking. "You've recently experienced a very traumatic loss. Should the league council decide that you are not emotionally or mentally suitable for service, you will be relieved, at least temporarily, of your duty."

There is a long, uncomfortable silence, and the air between them hangs stiffly. "Green?" Lance asks, hesitant and unsure.

"You know," Green finally says, "if Clair or your grandfather died - or if were married - no one would _dare_ tell you that you might be 'temporarily relived of your duty.' No one's even offered me an 'I'm sorry' yet." Green swallows, and his voice is low and shaky.

Before Lance can say anything, Green digs through his pocket for his gym keys and chucks them at Lance's head. "Here, have them. Do whatever the fuck you want."

When Green walks away, he holds his head up and makes sure that everyone knows he doesn't cry.

 

*

(19)

Leaf comes around to the gym every day for a week after that. Green doesn't want to see her, doesn't want to talk to her, and doesn't know why. He knows that with her is a reality he does not quite want to acknowledge just yet, if ever.

Instead, he holes himself up in his office until she goes away.

"Green!" Leaf yells through his door. "You can't keep doing this."

"Doing what?" he yells back. "My paperwork? 'Cause you're distracting me from doing it quite well."

On the last day, Leaf is quieter but more insistent, and camps out in front of his office.

"Green," she says. "I have things I need to do so I can't stay here forever, but I'm not going to leave until we talk."

Leaf is stubborn, but she also seems to have forgotten that Green is at least as stubborn as she is. He's slept in his office plenty of times before, and he's not afraid to do so until she decides to leave.

Five hours into their battle of wills, Eevee gets tired of the childishness, jumps off of Green's desk and pops open the lock to the door. Leaf blinks at Eevee once, stands up, picks her off the floor, and rushes into Green's office.

Green sighs and attempts to summon some sort of irritation or anger. He fails, of course, because it's _Eevee_ and instead resigns himself to whatever lecture Leaf's about to give him.

"You're not the only one who loved Red, y'know?" Leaf says, her tone sharp and cold. She stares him down, but when it doesn't elicit a response, she deflates a little. "Red wouldn't want you to hurt yourself like this, Green."

Green stares at his paperwork and fiddles with his pen, and Eevee hops out of Leaf's arms to cuddle up to him. Leaf sighs. "You've been in denial long enough," she comments. "The other stages of grief are green with envy."

 

Leaf leaves without much of a fuss after that, and Green tries not to think about what she says for the rest of the day. When he finally steps out his office, though, Green's eyes unconsciously gravitate towards a sticky note posted on his door.

A message in Leaf's elegant penmanship left in red ink. _Red sunrises are also the color of a new day._

Green should be thankful, he knows, but he almost hates Leaf at this moment, hates her for not letting him forget.

He also finds that he can't take the note off his door.

 

Green finds them plastered everywhere: on his apartment door, on the nightstand next to his bed, even inside his refrigerator - all places Leaf couldn't have gotten to without a certain someone's help. Green glares at Eevee, who only looks at him innocently and pouts when her dinner portion that night is a little smaller than usual.

Even though Green knows he should stop doing this to himself, he starts looking even harder. Every slight breeze that passes through his apartment, every fluttering of his curtains, all the things that used to hover in the periphery are now brought to the forefront of his attention.

At night, dreams of red and white and ice and snow are whispered in his ears, and he wakes up shivering and cold like death, reaching for something achingly familiar and just out of his grasp.

Green knows the truth. He has always known the truth, but he couldn't stop himself from wishing otherwise even if he'd tried.

 

*

(10)

Green doesn't hate his life, and he doesn't believe in defeat. It's not that Green wants to forget, it really isn't. He forgets because he _doesn't_ want to give up, not in spite of it.

Green forgets because it's how he copes. He forgets because it's how he deals with a reality he refuses to accept. But most of all, he forgets because he simply does not know how to exist in a world where he doesn't have something _more_ to look forward to.

 

*

(20)

Perhaps there's some truth to the saying "third time's the charm" because when Ethan ends up at his door again the first time in months, he doesn't look sad or dazed or ready to collapse. Instead, he's beaming with excitement, and even though he looks tired and disheveled and there's melting snow pooling on his cap and stuck to his hair, he's more alive than Green's ever seen him.

"Green!" Ethan pounces on him as soon as the door is open and invites himself into the gym without being asked.

Green almost pushes him out of his gym because _he's getting ready to close_ , and Ethan doesn't have an excuse this time so he can damn well wait twelve hours or so just like everyone else.

Before Green can tell him this, Ethan spits out, "I beat him!" and Green stops dead in his tracks.

"Beat who?" Green asks carefully. He'd forgotten about this, why Ethan had come to him in the first place, and everything he'd assumed from that.

"The trainer on Mt. Silver! I beat him! I won!"

"Yeah?" Green tries to be as casual as he can about it. He's already eliminated the impossible, but he needs to make sure, just in case. "You find out his name?"

Ethan blinks at him. "I... don't know. He left as soon as I won. Didn't even shake my hand afterwards."

Green lets out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. It's not the closure he's been looking for, but it's enough for now.

He hums. "What're you going to do now?"

Ethan pauses. "I guess I could challenge the League again. Maybe even accept the Champion position this time. I mean all of this would be after..." _After dealing with Silver._ Right.

The two of them stand there awkwardly for a long moment until Green realizes that Ethan is dripping on his pristine gym floor.

"What are you doing here?" Green snaps. "Go find him."

Ethan tries to protest something about encouragement and moral support, and instead, Green shoves him out the door.

 

Ethan reclaims the title of Champion with such ease it's practically embarrassing, and Green ends up at Ethan's initiation ceremony against his will.

Silver is at Ethan's side the entire time, his expression a mixture of annoyance at Ethan's clinginess, pride, and discomfort at the glances cast their way. But he doesn't move away either, and Ethan's mother is also there to congratulate him at the end. Green can't help but notice Lyra awkwardly hanging at their side, smiling supportively and trying to be a good friend, but keeping a small distance.

There are still hushed comments and hurtful murmurs cast behind their backs in the crowd, but it's not nearly as bad as it had been with him and Red. Green even overhears a few remarks about how charming of a couple the two are intermixed with the other remarks. He can't help but feel a prang of jealousy at that - it's still not easy for Ethan, but it's easier than it ever was for him.

Sometime towards the end as the reception's dying down, Ethan wanders over to him, gratitude up to his eyes.

"I just wanted to thank you for everything," he says, and Green knows it's not just about the training, especially since Ethan had already thanked him for that. "You told me it was going to be hard, and I know it will, but - you made it a lot easier."

Green shrugs. He's not selfless - could never be selfless enough to wish for someone's happiness at the expense of his own (except maybe Red's) - but even then, he would never wish what he went through on someone else. Green never had a choice, but if that changed people's hearts even a little, he's not selfish enough to hope no one else would benefit from it.

"I won't say 'you're welcome.' But I am glad it worked out." He pats Ethan on the shoulder once before nudging him back towards the crowd. "You have people that want to see you more than me. Go mingle with them instead."

Green can't help but notice the expression on Ethan's face as walks back towards Silver.

Maybe, one day again, that could be him.

 

*

(7)

"Why the fuck would I want to watch this?" Green hisses the second time he finds Leaf at his apartment door after Red's funeral. "Yeah, okay, Red is dead. They're putting him into the fucking ground. Great. Thanks."

Leaf sighs. "This is the last time you'll ever see Red," she says too patiently, and presses the tape into his VCR. Green feels the guilt rise up in his chest. Leaf - the old Leaf - would never let him get away with saying these things, at least not without some snappy comeback.

He knows he's being ungrateful about the things she's been doing for him, and he shouldn't shoot the messenger. After all, Leaf is the only one telling him anything at all, who _told_ him about Red, but Green needs to take his anger out on something right now, and they both know that.

"Sorry," he says, and Leaf turn towards him curiously. "I'm sorry. You're a good friend, and I'm a terrible person to be around."

Leaf shrugs. "It's not your fault. You have a right to be angry." Leaf bites her bottom lip. "I should've told you about the funeral myself. I thought you already knew. I mean, it was all over the news." She pauses. "Though, retrospectively, that was probably stupid since I know you don't watch the news." She looks up at him and meets his eyes.

Everything else that unsaid is left hanging in the air between them: why Green doesn't watch the news and why no one else said anything to him and if anything could ever make this okay. There are some things that Green will never be ready to talk about.

She presses play, and they both turn towards the TV screen.

"Why did they tape it?" Green asks rhetorically. "So they could remember the perfect tragedy for their perfect hero?" He laughs, and tries to ignore how much it stings that everyone else got to see this before him.

"Green..." Leaf says, but his eyes are fixed on the screen, and he doesn't say anything else for the rest of the clip.

It's almost a beautiful ceremony, Green thinks. There's pomp and grandeur and the sobbing, adoring masses. It's everything Red would've hated. But Green is thankful he had a proper burial.

There are shots of Red's mother as he's being lowered into the ground, close-ups of her crying and being comforted by Green's grandfather. A lump catches in his throat. Even if he had been at the funeral, Green wonders if they would've shown him at all.

"Red would've wanted you to be there," Leaf says finally, when tape cuts off and they are staring at a pixilated, grainy mess. Leaf looks at him expectantly, but he has no tears at all. Green is so far removed from what was happening on the tape that it doesn't even feel real.

"If I were there, I wouldn't have let them make it a spectacle of it," Green says definitively after he gathers his thoughts.

"Green," Leaf breathes. "Red saved thousands of lives. He died a hero. People wanted to pay their respects."

"People's memories are short," Green chuckles. "In a month, no one is going to remember who Red was except us."

 

*

(21)

It's not that Green wants to do it, but Leaf won't let him _not_. Reconciliation, she'd argued, is the first step to moving forward.

"I thought you said no longer being in denial was the first step to moving forward," he'd mocked her anyway, and she'd swatted at him.

" _No_ , not being in denial the first step to not being an idiot," she'd snipped, though she was wearing a playful smile. "But seriously, Green. You don't have anything to lose. At worst, everything will stay the same, and at best you'll make peace with him - and yourself."

Green had rolled his eyes, but ended up promising Leaf he would try anyway, and Green's never broken a promise to her (that he could help). He isn't completely ready to forgive his grandfather yet, but he's not closed off to the idea of trying anymore.

Which is how he ends up sitting in front his telephone at 7am on a Saturday morning deciding what to do.

Green knows his grandfather is awake because his grandfather is a morning person and _old_ , and normally - like a _normal_ person - Green would still be asleep, but he's up early today, like he has been for the last several weeks.

But Green doesn't want to think about why that is. He doesn't want to think about what he's going to say to his grandfather either, but right now, he considers it the lesser of two evils.

After staring at his phone for half an hour, Green decides it's not going to bite him, picks up the receiver and punches in the lab's number, fidgeting as the dial tone sounds once, twice, three times...

There's dread and anxiety pooling at the pit of his stomach and threatening to push up to his throat, and Green realizes, oh no, he's not ready, he hasn't prepped himself enough for this, and he's just about hang up when there's a click and a voice on the other side of the line that says, "Oak Research Laboratory, Professor Oak speaking."

Green's swallows loudly - so loud that there's no way his grandfather could have missed it. He can't find anything to say.

"Hello?" Oak says again.

Green starts to panics after a second of silence - he knows he's about to hang up he doesn't know what to say he should just let him hang up-

"Grandpa," Green says, the word foreign on his tongue and his intonation halfway between a question and a statement.

Green wonders if he'd been too late, because there's a long pause but then there's no dial tone and -

"Green?"

 

Green doesn't know what he had been expecting, but he suppose awkward silence should've been on his list. He and his grandfather had never been close, and all the years of animosity and no communication probably don't help.

"I didn't know you were planning to call," his grandfather says after even more silence, and clears his throat.

Green barely manages to avoid saying something stupid like, Oh, I should've called ahead. To let you know I was going to call. Right. Instead he blabs out, "Oh, uh. Leaf said you wanted to talk so..." _I got harassed into it? Had nothing better to do on a Saturday morning?_ "I just figured..." Green trails off and shrugs, even though he knows this phone doesn't have a camera monitor attached.

It's so horrible and awkward that Green is embarrassed for both of them and just wants to hide in a corner and _die_ but that's not really an option. Instead, he pushes on: "Is this a bad time? 'Cause I can always call back later -"

"No! No," his grandfather interrupts. "Now's fine."

Green waits for him to say something else. Nothing else comes. Green shifts in his chair.

"Ahem. Ah, well, I just wanted to let you know I'm.... I'm still alive." His statement is met with a murmur of acknowledgement and more silence.

Green really wants to hang up, but how do you end a conversation with someone you haven't talked to in five years? _Have a nice life? Smell ya later? Thanks for ruining my childhood?_ Green settles on the standard convention.

"Well, bye," he says, but just before he hangs up, his grandfather blurts out something like, _wait._

"Huh?"

A pause. "Leaf was right. I did want to talk."

The breath Green lets out is shaky. He leans back into his chair and listens to Oak's side of the story.

 

"You know how stuck in their ways old people can be." Green isn't sure what he's supposed to say to that, if anything. "You always did look like your father," Oak muses. Green listens carefully. His parents have been out of the picture so long he's never considered them part of the equation.

"I don't even remember my parents," Green admits.

"You wouldn't," his grandfather says. "Daisy - she looks just like her mother now. She always did. I suppose that's why I've always favored her over you."

A spike of pain stabs Green in the heart. He hasn't cared about what his grandfather had to say for years, but even after all this time, hearing such a blatant admission of what he'd always known still hurt. He wonders why he's doing this, how tearing open old wounds that had been long-since healed can help him at all.

"But," Oak continues, "she can't help that any more than you could help looking like your father. I was bitter, and afraid, and I took that out on you. And in that, I failed my duty as a grandfather."

It doesn't make it okay, but it's better than nothing at all.

"I always considered Red's mother a second daughter, so when we found out - perhaps the old, conservative part of me didn't accept it for the same reason as everyone else ..." Green waits. "But it wasn't even your relationship. I felt like you were your father, stealing someone else from me."

"What you did didn't just hurt me," Green says. "It also hurt Red."

"I know."

Green closes his eyes and lets the words sink in. His grandfather doesn't actually say, "I'm sorry" or "I was wrong," but it's the closest thing Green will ever get to an apology.

"Green?"

"Yeah, I..." What can Green say? Not, _You told us to keep away, and Red never got to see Pallet Town again._ He can't say it because that would be petty. Even without a video screen, Green can tell that his grandfather sounds tired and old, older than Green remembered him sounding. Oak is old and wants to make amends, so Green won't be petty. After all, he better than anyone else knows what misery is, and knows it well enough that he wouldn't ever wish it on someone else, even if it was someone who'd ruined his life in multiple ways.

Green settles on, "Sorry for being such a stubborn brat growing up."

His grandfather snorts. "Yeah, well, I guess it definitely proves you _are_ your mother's child." Green can practically hear Oak roll his eyes and smiles despite himself.

 _Right then, Green is hit with the realization that maybe it wasn't all so bad growing up, that maybe it doesn't have to be the way it is now. Maybe - _maybe_ \- it is possible put this past behind him, but he has a lot to think about first, and he's not going to let himself change his mind because of a story or a few quips. The urge to end the conversation before he can be swayed rises in him again._

"It was good talking to you, Gramps, but I, ah, I have stuff to do. Gym stuff," he lies. "So, yeah, maybe some other time -"

"Green," Oak says, and Green stops. "I - Daisy ... and Red's mother, they miss you. If you have some time, you should come back. Visit."

It's an invitation that comes a little too late - Green can't help but think about what the look on Red's face would've been if he had gotten to hear it as well - but it's also then that Green realizes forgiveness might not be so far off. "Yeah, maybe," he agrees.

 

The entire conversation is exhausting, and Green crawls back into bed after it's over. He falls asleep in minutes, but it's not an easy slumber. His dreams are filled with white and ice and snow and hail and it's covered in blood blood blood like red red Red.

Green jerks awake and stares up at his clock. Ten minutes. He buries his hands in his hair, his fingers icy and numb against his scalp.

Nothing makes sense anymore.

In a huff, he pushes off the covers and gets out of bed.

Leaf was wrong, Green thinks as he walks towards his closet. Reconciliation was not the first step towards moving forward. It was closure.

Green packs his bags.

 

*

(1)

Leaf is wide-eyed with disbelief. "You're kidding."

Red moves his right hand, which had been under the table resting on their booth seat, on top of Green's hand that was sitting on the dinner table.

Green makes eye contact with Red before he turns back to Leaf. "We're not. It's true."

There's an uncomfortable moment where they're just waiting for her response. "What you want me to say? I mean, I'm happy for you, but it's a lot to take in..." They both tense. "I'm sorry, I just need to think."

Leaf gets up and walks out of the diner. Green and Red look at each other. Leaf hadn't even finished her milkshake.

 

Leaf shows up at their apartment five days later with a bag full of popsicles in one hand. Red's out of town for work, but Green lets her in anyway.

"Red's not here, so you know," Green tells her.

Leaf shrugs. "S'okay. I kind of just wanted to talk to you. It's easier with two people anyway."

Leaf sets the bag down on Green's kitchen counter and offers him a green popsicle. "Or are you two such a soppy couple now that you'd rather have a red one?" she teases. Green sticks his tongue out at her and snatches the popsicle out of her hand. She laughs as she finds a blue one for herself and stuffs the rest into the freezer.

He and Red are still trying to situate themselves into their tiny studio apartment so the kitchen is a mess and their table is buried somewhere under a pile of boxes, and Green tries to clear out some space for them to sit. Leaf is impatient, though, and never had a great sense of propriety anyway, especially not when it came to him or Red, so she walks over to their bed and plops right down on it with popsicle in hand.

Green makes a slightly pained expression at her. The popsicle...

Leaf looks at him weirdly for a moment. Then something like realization and horror fades onto her face.

 _Oh God._ "Wait, what, no!" Green sputters and hides his face in his hands. "The sheets are clean. Just - don't drip on the bed." He grabs a napkin from the kitchen.

Leaf scoffs and smacks him playfully when he's close enough to hand it to her. "Why didn't you just say so." Green sits down on the bed next to her, and they eat their popsicles quietly for a minute.

"Sorry I walked off the other day," Leaf says, wiping the sticky blue drips off of her hand. "I don't want you to think it was because I was... freaked out or anything. I mean, it _was_ a lot to take in, but I wasn't lying when I said I was happy for you." She turns to look at him earnestly. "You've always been Green, and you're always going to be Green to me. And Red is and always will be Red, just like I'll always be me. That's what matters most, right?"

Green's expression softens. "Thanks."

"We're best friends, and that doesn't change a thing. The least I could do is support you, like I know you would for me." Leaf bites her lip. "But everyone else might not be as accepting. Have you told your grandpa yet?"

Green shakes his head. He has no plans to ever say anything to his grandfather again. They'd only told Leaf in the first place because they couldn't _not_ and had always known she would come around sooner rather than later, but even then, the force of her initial reaction had surprised them. Now, neither of them are sure they want to say anything to anyone else at all.

"Oh, Green," Leaf says. "You don't need me tell you it'll be hard. I'll keep your secret but..." Leaf wraps her arms around him, and Green hugs her back. "Always remember that you have people who'll love you, no matter what."

Leaf pulls away. "But now you owe me milkshakes for the rest of my life," she laughs, but Green can't find it in himself to be annoyed. Not when in her smile was something a lot like hope.

 

*

(22)

Green's not sure how Mt. Silver could've ever been a vacation destination - he's not even sure there's not enough people living within a ten-mile radius of the place to populate an industry, and whoever gets sucked into thinking it does must have the worst vacation ever.

But it doesn't matter because he's here now anyway.

Green's not sure why he's looking for what he's looking for, but it seems like the right thing to do. Closure, he convinces himself. The last thing he needs to do before he can properly let go.

And maybe, he'll find the answer to all his weird dreams. All that snow and white and - Red? That had to have been a dream. But Green needs to know, needs to make sure for himself...

"Vui!" Eevee shivers and ruffles her fur, and Green sets her down on the cave floor.

"You're going to get sick if stay out of your Pokeball," Green scolds, and Eevee makes unhappy noises at him, pawing at his pants. "Don't worry, girl. I'll be fine," he says, though he's not sure if it's to reassure her or himself.

Eevee pouts, but doesn't fight Green when he returns her to her Pokeball. Green sighs as he reattaches her Pokeball to his belt, and shoves his hands in his coat pockets. The silence is deafening even through the blizzard. Now he's truly alone.

Green still has a ways to climb.

When he finally approaches the summit, Green is shivering like all those times when he'd woken up from those nightmares, and the flush of illness rapidly spreading across his skin is almost as imminent as the top. But he's gone for this long, he's almost there now and -

There's nothing. Nothing at the top. No Red or whatever trainer Ethan had fought. Just ice and snow and hail and white and nothing and - Green doesn't even realize it's his own tear freezing against his skin as it slides down his cheek.

Of course there was no Red. How could there be when he'd died? But oh, Green had been so shrewd, holding out that hope in his heart even when he _knew_ the truth, but never quite accepting it as such. He'd always had that little irrational flicker of hope.

It serves him right, he thinks. This is why it was perfect: because there was never anything without Red, so there was just nothing. Nothing nothing nothing nothing there'd been nothing there all along.

Green collapses in the snow.

 

*

(0)

Sometimes, there are people you just can't live without. For Green, Red is that person.

 

*

(23)

Green's not sure how or when he makes it back down, but when he does, the world feels engulfed by fire. He stumbles across town, brain nearly incoherent with fever, and drops Eevee and his other Pokemon at his gym because he's in no condition to look after them himself.

Leaf yells at him through her PokeGear - _Oh my God, how could you have been so irresponsible?!_ \- and books the first available flight back from Isshu. But even after half a day, she's still at least another thirteen hours away.

For now, it's just him alone in his apartment. Green's tired and drowsy, but he can't sleep anymore. He's sure he's slept something like eighteen hours already, so now he's relegated to staring at his furniture and ceiling. He battles through his feverish haze, turns towards his window and - Red's standing there.

Green curses to himself. Why here, why now, when Red hadn't even been on top of Mt. Silver? When Green thought he was finally ready to move on?

"You're dead," Green says as he watches Red move away from the window towards his bed, to himself more than anyone else. "You're dead, I'm sick and delusional, and you can't be here right now."

Red stops at the edge of Green's bed, hovering so close that Green could touch him if he weren't so tired and his limbs so lethargic with fever. Green barely manages to turn on his side to look at him. There's something like a smile on Red's lips, halfway between a smirk and exasperated affection, that Green remembers he'd always loved.

That he still loves.

Red takes Green's wrist, his cold fingers burning like dry ice against Green's hot skin. He presses Green's palm against his cheek. Solid.

 _Don't I feel real to you?_

Though cold, like death.

Green moves his hand from Red's cheek to his chest. No heartbeat.

"You died," Green whispers.

Red closes his eyes. _I know. I'm sorry._

The wetness pooling at the corners of Green's eyes drips, running down across the bridge of his nose. His vision starts to blur over.

"You died and left me alone," Green says, not accusatory, but distant like a statement of fact, fighting through the haze and stuffiness in his own head.

Red turns his head slightly before taking a few steps back from the bed, far enough that Green would have to reach for him. Green barely manages to prop himself up against the headboard.

"You don't have to be alone anymore," Red says. He holds out his hand.

"Why are you doing this?" Green asks in the general direction of Red's voice. He's so dizzy now, and even trying to wipe away the water in his eyes isn't helping refocus his vision anymore.

The only answer he gets is Red leaning close enough so Green barely has to reach - just enough so Green that can see him again.

But he hadn't needed it anyway. Green knows. Green has always known in his heart, in the same place he had harbored that flicker of hope that should have died so long ago. He couldn't even consider it defeat because it was _Red_ , and Green could never win against Red, even the times he had beaten him. It was Red, and he'd never had any other options.

There had never been a choice.

Green takes his hand.


End file.
